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itchy charlie

Hi everyone i am new to this and kc's i was given a beautiful 3 year old king charles about 3 month's ago already on his 5th home ( this will be his last and i adore him) just need a little advice if anyone can help, when he came to me charlie was riddled with flea's ... which we cleared within 2 day's but after about a month he started to scratch really bad, but there have been no sign of the flea's, he has recently started to bite and rag at himself and has started to pull his fur out he runs around and cry's s if something is biting him really bad i am in the process of trying to change his diet to see if this helps and i just wondered if anyone else has anything similar with their king charles .... i would appreciate any feedback thanks Tanya

Sorry to hear Charlie is so uncomfortable. What breed do you have? I am not sure whether you are saying he is a King Charles Spaniel (KC) or a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (CKCS -- they are two different breeds).

Either way: you definitely need an immediate trip to the vet -- I would not try the very long process of testing for food allergies without vet help and without helping his evident distress and making sure this is even the problem. There could be a dozen reasons for this behaviour and a vet needs to help you figure out what it could be. This may be an allergy to environment, fleas, food; could be mites (which can be extremely uncomfortable), could be a skin condition, and also, you and your vet do need to be aware of a neurological condition common in cavaliers and also seen in King Charles spaniels called syringomyelia. There's more information here: www.smcavalier.com.

But you are describing a pretty extreme level of distress and I would get him to a good vet immediately, the fastest that you can get an appointment. He is suffering if he is crying out -- that indicates pain and discomfort -- and at the very least he could be given some pain relief as you search for the root cause. Good luck and let us know what your vet says.

Hi karlin thanks for your response . It has got me really worried now and will get him in tomorrow. He is a cavalier ...... i dont know anything about this breed as i have always had german shepherds and border collie dogs and mongrels ...he has not had a great life so far but will do my best to see its all uphill for him from now on. its really strange that this dosn't happen through the night he is really calm then dosn't bite or scratch himself.
I will keep you posted as to what happens at the vet and thankyou for your help.... Tanya

Poor Charlie, I hope he's feeling well soon. There is a lot of great advice on this board for the whole range of problems... definitely bring him to the vet.

When he's having an itchy moment, you might see if his belly is bright pink or red. That was one of our only clues that Maggie was experiencing allergies (rather than something more severe)... among other things she is allergic to cats and GRASS. she's on atopica and getting allergy shots now, soon we hope to get her off the atopica completely but she's not there quite yet.

good luck to you, I hope he's feeling better soon. it's hard when they are uncomfortable and you can't fix the problems...